The Girl Factory, Karen Dietrich
The Girl Factory, Karen Dietrich
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The Girl Factory
A Memoir

Author: Karen Dietrich

Narrator: Cassandra Campbell

Unabridged: 8 hr 25 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 10/01/2013


Synopsis

It's 1985 in a small factory town near Pittsburgh. Eight-year-old Karen's parents are lifelong workers at the Anchor Glass plant, where one Saturday, an employee goes on a shooting spree, killing four supervisors, then himself. This event splits the young girl's life open, and like her mother, she begins to seek comfort in obsessive rituals and superstitions.

This beautifully evocative memoir chronicles the next fourteen years, as Karen moves through girlhood, adolescence, and young adulthood. It illuminates small-town factory life; explores a complicated mother-daughter bond; thoughtfully unfolds a smart but insecure girl's coming of age; achingly recounts her attempts to use sex to fit in; and ultimately uncovers the buried secret from her childhood—a medical file with an unbearable report.

The Girl Factory deftly travels the intersections of memory and origin. Karen's body remembers details her mind has tried to control. As the young woman mines her interior landscape for answers, certain questions persist. Where does memory live—in the body or the mind? And can you rewrite the story of your past?

About Karen Dietrich

Karen Dietrich is an adjunct English instructor at the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg and Westmoreland County Community College. Her poems and essays have appeared in the Pittsburgh City Paper, Nerve, the Bellingham Review, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, PANK Magazine, and elsewhere. She lives in Greensburg, Pennsylvania.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Jennifer on October 05, 2013

I enjoyed reading The Girl Factory through Kindle. I finished it in 4 evenings, putting my homework aside because I kept wanting to return to the book. I like the cultural references, which those of us born in the mid to late 70s will all relate to. I also like the smooth and calm tone of the words......more

Goodreads review by Cherie on April 04, 2021

UGH!......more

Goodreads review by Jessie Popelka on May 25, 2023

Good writing, but her life isn’t interesting enough to write a memoir about. Overall a well written story about a completely boring and mundane upbringing.......more

Goodreads review by Erin on January 23, 2014

Dietrich details her experience growing up in Pennsylvania in a factory town with parents who are lifelong Anchor Glass Factory employees. I'm not a prude, but I was a little disturbed by the early obsession the author has with sexuality and her body in the memior. Of course, the clues are there for......more

Goodreads review by Chrissy on October 05, 2013

I'm going to start out this review with a disclaimer: the author of this book was my college room mate during my senior year, her junior year. Having said that (and growing up in Pittsburgh), I think I had a different perspective on the book than the average reader. I'd be reading, and there'd be a......more